Prophets Essay ⋆ History Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Both Jewish and Christian traditions regard the Bible as a divinely inspired book in and through which God reveals to human beings what they could not know of themselves. This revelation came chiefly through the prophets, privileged men and women to whom and through whom God spoke. Because of their access to this revelation they carried great authority and at times exercised as decisive an influence on the course of Israel’s history as did the kings and rulers.

The History Of Prophecy In Israel

The first person referred to as a prophet is Abraham, the Patriarch of Israel, and prophets appear throughout the history narrated by the writers of the Bible. However, the prophets are not a uniform phenomenon; they differ greatly in their manner of prophesying, in their role among the people of Israel, and in the significance accorded them by the biblical writers.

The origin of prophecy among the Israelites is obscure. Although both Abraham and Moses are referred to as prophets, because of their role as intermediaries between God and Israel, prophet is only one of the many titles given them in the Bible, and they are not commonly called prophets. Generations later, a few figures are referred to as prophets in the very early days of Israel’s settlement in Canaan (such as Deborah and an unnamed prophet in the book of Judges), but prophets as a distinct religious phenomenon first appear clearly with Samuel, the great leader of Israel. Samuel was a judge in Israel, that is, a ruler or political leader of the people, but he became a judge because he received revelation from God, by which he was able to establish his leadership. Here we see clearly for the first time the most distinctive trait of the prophets—the capacity to receive revelation from God, to receive the word of the Lord and make it known.

But Samuel was not the only prophet in Israel at that time. The biblical book of Samuel also refers to “bands of prophets” whose nature and role is very obscure. These prophets gathered in groups under a master and engaged in “ecstatic” religious worship. But in spite of great academic interest in the nature and identity of these bands of prophets, little is known of them. Immediately after the time of Samuel, Nathan and Gad appear as prophets, not as leaders or rulers themselves, as Abraham, Moses, Deborah, and Samuel had been, but rather are attached to the court of King David as advisers. They gave their counsel not only in religious matters but in military and political concerns as well. The advice they give is not always presented as the word of the Lord, but they were valued as advisers because what they said was not simply their advice but rather revelation of God’s will.

In the period after David’s kingship the prophets become increasingly important in the life of Israel. They appear frequently in the histories known as Kings and Chronicles and are often involved in conflict with the rulers over religious matters or in the conflicts between rulers. Their authority derives from their privileged access to the word of the Lord, that is, the knowledge of what God is doing or is going to do, and the encounters between prophets and kings or between prophets was often tense and dramatic. The outstanding figures of this period are Elijah and Elisha, of whom many stories of miraculous activity are recorded and who were deeply involved in the political conflicts of their time. Like Samuel, Elijah and Elisha are closely associated with the obscure bands of prophets, sometimes referred to as “the sons of the prophets.” Both Elijah and Elisha were engaged in conflict with rulers of Israel (such as Ahab) over religious matters.

These rulers sought to introduce in Israel various forms of Canaanite worship, and Elijah and Elisha used their prophetic authority to oppose replacement of the worship of Israel’s God with worship of other gods. In the history told by the writers of the Bible this clash with idolatry was the classic struggle of many of the later prophets.

The words and deeds of all of these earlier prophets are accessible to us through writings that took shape long after the times of the prophets. Possibly these accounts are based on writings preserved and passed on by the bands of prophets, but if so we now have only the much later written accounts. But in the period just before the invasions of both the northern and southern kingdoms (Israel and Judah) by the Assyrians and the Babylonians, prophets appeared whose words were recorded more extensively and are passed on in the books referred to as “the later prophets,” or “the writing prophets,” that is, the books from Isaiah to Malachi, each bearing the name of an individual prophet. These books are sometimes referred to as the “major prophets”—the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel—and the “minor prophets”—the books of Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.

Although the dates and circumstances in which these prophets appeared are in many cases difficult to determine precisely, their activities focus on the great crises that led to the overthrow of both the northern kingdom (Israel) and the southern kingdom (Judah). The work of the earliest of these writing prophets is usually dated about the middle of the eighth century b.c.e. (750 b.c.e.). Most of their prophecy is directed toward Israel, warning that failure to remain faithful to Israel’s God will result in personal and national catastrophe. But there are also collections of sayings directed to other nations, often promising retribution for having opposed the nation of Israel.

In the end the Assyrians conquered the northern kingdom (c. 721 b.c.e.), and later the Babylonians conquered the southern kingdom (the beginning of the sixth century b.c.e.). The prophets who witnessed these events interpreted them as punishment of Israel for idolatry and failure to keep the law that God had given. The dates of some of the prophetic books are disputed, but the books of Ezekiel, Daniel, Haggai, and Zechariah at least were written in the period after the Babylonian conquest. The tone and message of these books is dramatically different from that of the prophets who were active before the great crisis.

These later prophets bring messages of hope and consolation for the survivors of the national disaster. After the time of the restoration of Jerusalem in the fifth century b.c.e. no great prophets appear, and it is common to say that prophecy ceased in Israel. However, the existence or absence of prophecy during this later period is a matter of debate.

The preaching and teaching of the prophets covered a wide range of concerns and varied from prophet to prophet and through time. The activity and pronouncements of the earliest prophets often dealt with political concerns because for them the life of the nation of Israel was very much the concern of Israel’s God. They also were deeply involved with the monotheism of Israel as it was being shaped in its earliest stages. As time went on these themes remained important, but the prophets’ concerns broadened. The teaching of the prophets covered these major themes: true worship of God and avoidance of idolatry; obedience to the Torah, both personally and in the conduct of government; interpretation of historical events as God’s action; the expectation of a future glorious kingdom for Israel; concern for the welfare of the poor and helpless; and God’s dealing with neighboring nations, especially as a consequence of how they treated Israel.

True And False Prophesy

The prophets claimed that they were speaking on behalf of God, and that bold claim led naturally to the question of how one determined whether the claim was true or false. Prophets also disagreed with one another and at times had sharp confrontations, each claiming that he had the word of the Lord and that his opponent was either deceived or a deceiver. Some simple tests for determining the genuineness of prophecy are presented in the Jewish Bible; and the prophet Jeremiah, in his conflict with the prophet Hananiah, introduces an interesting criterion (Jer. 28:8–9), but these tests are difficult to apply, and conflict between prophets was common.

Christian Prophets

While it is clear that there were people considered prophets in the times of the early church (cf. Acts 21:9, 10, 1 Cor. 12–14), the primary interest of the writers of the New Testament was in the Jewish Bible prophets and what they said as it applied to Jesus (Christ) of Nazareth. Very little of what the early Christians prophets said is recorded, and they did not play the dominant role their counterparts played in the Jewish Bible history. Very little is said of Christian prophets after the time of the New Testament, in fact, so little that until recently it was widely thought that Christian prophets disappeared after the first century c.e. However, in 1873 a manuscript was discovered in Constantinople that turned out to be very significant for the study of Christian origins. This manuscript, the Didache as it is now called, appeared to demonstrate the activity of Christian prophets in the early decades of the second century and sparked a renewed interest in the phenomenon of Christian prophecy. Scholarly and popular interest in the topic has produced a flood of books and articles since the middle of the 20th century, but while much has been learned about the presence and activity of prophets in early Christianity, there is little consensus about the nature of early Christian prophecy.

References:

Forbes, Christopher. Prophecy and Inspired Speech in Early Christianity and Its Hellenistic Environment. Tübingen, Germany: J.C.B. Mohr, 1995;
Heschel, Abraham J. The Prophets. New York: HarperCollins, 2001;
Linblom, Johannes. Prophecy in Ancient Israel. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1962;
Von Rad, Gerhard. Old Testament Theology. San Francisco, CA: Harper San Francisco, 1965.

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